In the wake of my grandma Dukleth’s death in 2006, my mother and her siblings returned home to empty her house. Grandma lived in a white farmhouse in Norway, Wisconsin that her father, my great-grandpa Johnson, had built with his own hands. I never knew my great-grandpa, but I have fond memories of visiting my grandparents on his farm, shucking fresh sweetcorn with Grandpa in the summer, and eating more than my share of Grandma’s Norwegian Krumkake at Christmas. Among the many precious heirlooms in the house was my grandma’s massive “Dukleth Roots” binder, which contained photographs, letters, and other documents of her extensive genealogical research that we often looked at together.

Watching The Cosby Show on Thursday nights was a family ritual in my household. From the opening credits featuring Bill Cosby’s inimitable dance moves to the daily dramas of Cliff, Claire, and the kids, I looked forward to seeing what the Huxtables would be up to each week. What loving affection would transpire between Cliff and Claire? Would Sondra be home from college? What would Denise be wearing? How would Theo get into trouble? Whose business would Vanessa have her nose in now? Most importantly, would we get to hear Rudy call Kenny “Bud?” No matter what happened, The Cosby Show guaranteed good, wholesome, family fun.

Not long after Denise Huxtable matriculated at Hillman College in Virginia on The Cosby Show spin-off A Different World, I enrolled at Furman University in Greenville, SC. If Cliff Huxtable’s support for historically black colleges had any influence on Denise’s decision to attend Hillman, my dad’s influence had everything to do with my attending Furman. Dad had been a professor at Furman since the early 1970s, and I took great pride in the fact that he taught at one of the best liberal arts colleges in the South. Although I had long planned to attend college far from home, when it came time to decide, my loyalty to Furman ruled the day.

“Blood and Soil!” “You will not replace us!” “Jews will not replace us!” These were the chants of a young, white, largely male crowd marching on the University of Virginia lawn on the evening of August 11, 2017. The next day, these white supremacists rallied to protest efforts to remove a 26-foot equestrian statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee that had been erected in 1923 from a prominent Charlottesville park. The day turned deadly when one white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of pedestrians, killing counterprotestor Heather Heyer. Later that month, the city council voted unanimously to cover the Lee statue and a 1921 statue of Stonewall Jackson in black tarps as symbols of mourning for Heyer’s death. On February 27, 2018, Judge Richard E. Moore ordered the coverings removed, citing citizens’ rights to view the statues, and on April 30, 2019, he ruled against removal of the monuments under a law protecting war memorials. On April 1, 2020, however, the Virginia Supreme Court overturned that ruling. The city council voted unanimously, on June 7, 2021, to remove both statues and did so on July 10, 2021.

In 2003, President Ruth Simmons of Brown University commissioned the first major self-study of an American university’s relationship to the slave trade. She tasked the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice with researching and reporting on Brown’s participation in slavery, including reflection on its meaning in light of “the complex historical, political, legal and moral questions posed by any present-day confrontation with past injustice.”1 The committee recommended various truth-telling and memorialization measures, the creation of a center for research on slavery and justice, a commitment to high ethical standards for investments and gifts, scholarships for African American students, and fostering good public education in Rhode Island.2 Brown’s action established a high bar for responses to the legacies of slavery at other American universities, and many others followed suit, including the University of Virginia, Harvard, Columbia, William and Mary, Rutgers, the University of North Carolina, and Washington and Lee.3

In March 2007, I presented my first academic conference paper. Still in the process of finishing coursework as a second-year doctoral student at the University of Virginia, I had submitted a seminar paper comparing Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s and John Howard Yoder’s accounts of the relationship between Christian discipleship and violence. Before giving the paper, I experienced what I suspect was a normal case of nerves. But I had prepared well, anticipating potential questions, considering possible responses, even practicing aloud.

On September 25, 2018, actor Bill Cosby, once known as “America’s Dad,” was sentenced to three to ten years in prison for three counts of aggravated indecent assault against Andrea Constand.1 Although the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has since overturned his conviction, citing a due process violation, the original trial followed decades of allegations from more than sixty women that Cosby had sexually assaulted them, often with use of methaqualone – acts that Cosby himself had admitted in a previous civil case.2 But Cosby’s fall from grace is only one recent example of “Great Artists Who Have Done Terrible Things.”3

When I was a junior at Furman, I had the privilege of interviewing for an “ambassadorial scholarship” from Rotary International to study in the United Kingdom. My interview occurred at the height of one iteration of the Confederate flag controversy in South Carolina, when objections to the flag flying over the State House (and resistance to removing it) were gathering momentum. On my drive from Greenville to the interview at nearby Lander College, I noticed that Confederate flags flew from nearly every house I passed.